Daily Devotional

August 8

A First Book of Daily Readings

by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (selected by Frank Cumbers)

One Lord Jesus Christ, Light of Light, Very God of Very God

There He was (Luke 8:22–5), weary and tired, so tired, in fact, that He fell asleep.... Look at Him. There is no doubt about His humanity. He is fatigued, He is tired and weary, so much so that He just falls asleep, and, though the storm has arisen, He still goes on sleeping. He is subject to infirmity, He is a man in the body and flesh like all the rest of us. Ah, yes, but wait a minute. They came to Him and awoke Him saying, ‘Master, carest Thou not that we perish?’ Then He arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the sea, and they ceased and there was a calm ... it is not surprising that the disciples, seeing all this, wondered and said one to another, ‘What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him’. Man, and yet obviously God. He could command the elements, He could silence the wind and stop the raging of the sea. He is the Lord of nature and of creation, He is the Lord of the universe. This is the mystery and the marvel of Jesus Christ—God and Man, two natures in One Person, two natures unmixed yet resident in the same Person….

If you do not believe in the unique deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, you are not a Christian, whatever else you may be. We are not looking at a good Man only, we are not interested merely in the greatest Teacher the world has ever seen; we are face to face with the fact that God, the Eternal Son, has been in this world and that He took upon Him human nature and dwelt amongst us, a Man amongst men—God-Man. We are face to face with the mystery and the marvel of the Incarnation and of the Virgin Birth. It is all here, and it shines out in all the fullness of its amazing glory. ‘What manner of man is this?’ He is more than Man. That is the answer—He is also God.